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Dior recently premiered a new advertisement for their "reinvented" Rouge Dior lipstick; it stars Natalie Portman and is soundtracked by Prince's "Raspberry Beret". Two years ago they also had an advertisement for one of their lipsticks which also starred Portman, and that one used Prince's "Kiss".

Did anything similar ever happen while Prince was alive?

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While it was rare, Prince did on occasion license his music for usage in advertisements.

This is a likely incomplete list:

  • Prince sold a clip of "Little Red Corvette" from his Sign O' The Times concert movie to Chevrolet.

  • Tina Turner's cover of "Baby I'm A Star" was used by Target (and yes, Prince had to approve that).

  • Prince wrote a song titled "Coca-Cola".

    It is believed that the track was written as a theme for the Coca-Cola Company, and most likely in particular for their Coca-Cola soft drink (the Coca-Cola Company sponsored the Act II Tour in 1993). The track's lyrics indicate that it was recorded for a commercial (including "Life is exciting, oh yeah, but when you've got the real thing, it's better. Coca-Cola, go get some, it's the real thing. Always Coca-Cola.")

  • The 1993 Act II Tour was sponsored by Coca-Cola and each concert was littered with ads for it: on the video screens, on the tickets (the image below comes courtesy of Unused-Prince-Tickets.com),... There was even a sphere with the Coca-Cola logo at the mix desk (IIRC).

    unused ticket for Prince's 1993 Act II tour

  • Prince's "Guitar" was used by Verizon in a video he filmed for them.

    six weeks prior to the album’s release, the album version of Guitar was available for download on Verizon Wireless in the USA, and a short promotional clip of Prince and his band performing the song was used in TV advertisements.

    You can find more info about the Prince/Verizon collaboration in this flyer.

  • "Dreamer" was used in a Target ad for the Lotusflow3r album (this video was specifically filmed for the ad AFAIK).

  • Allegedly "Wow" (a.k.a. "The Unexpected") was intended for a commercial for Coca-Cola or Pepsi.

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    You’re quite good at answering your own questions.
    – cmp
    Jan 5, 2021 at 15:01
  • @cmp I'd researched it for another purpose, and decided that I could just as well share it here. This way I'd also be able to point at this whenever the topic comes up, plus since the StackExchange sites are well represented in Google, it will make it easier for someone else to find.
    – BCdotWEB
    Jan 5, 2021 at 15:41
  • A few years ago, a Continental commercial featured the song La La La Means I love you (from the album Emancipation). Back then, I remember thinking "Wow, they're so stupid, they could have taken the song Continental (from The New Power Generation)".
    – Bebs
    Jan 8, 2021 at 12:43
  • @Bebs Not a Prince song.
    – BCdotWEB
    Jan 8, 2021 at 14:03

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